The funeral was over. The carriages had rolled away through the
soft mud, and only the poor remained. They approached to the
newly-dug shaft and looked their last at the coffin, now almost
hidden beneath the spadefuls of clay. It was their moment. Most
of them were women from the dead woman's district, to whom black
garments had been served out by Mr. Wilcox's orders. Pure
curiosity had brought others. They thrilled with the excitement
of a death, and of a rapid death, and stood in groups or moved
between the graves, like drops of ink. The son of one of them, a
wood-cutter, was perched high above their heads, pollarding one
of the churchyard elms. From where he sat he could see the
village of Hilton, strung upon the North Road, with its accreting
suburbs; the sunset beyond, scarlet and orange, winking at him
beneath brows of grey; the church; the plantations; and behind
him an unspoilt country of fields and farms. But he, too, was
rolling the event luxuriously in his mouth. He tried to tell his
mother down below all that he had felt when he saw the coffin
approaching: how he could not leave his work, and yet did not
like to go on with it; how he had almost slipped out of the tree,
he was so upset; the rooks had cawed, and no wonder--it was as if
rooks knew too. His mother claimed the prophetic power herself--
she had seen a strange look about Mrs. Wilcox for some time.
London had done the mischief, said others. She had been a kind
lady; her grandmother had been kind, too--a plainer person, but
very kind. Ah, the old sort was dying out! Mr. Wilcox, he was a
kind gentleman. They advanced to the topic again and again,
dully, but with exaltation. The funeral of a rich person was to
them what the funeral of Alcestis or Ophelia is to the educated.
It was Art; though remote from life, it enhanced life's values,
and they witnessed it avidly.
The grave-diggers, who had kept up an undercurrent of disapproval
--they disliked Charles; it was not a moment to speak of such
things, but they did not like Charles Wilcox--the grave-diggers
finished their work and piled up the wreaths and crosses above
it. The sun set over Hilton; the grey brows of the evening
flushed a little, and were cleft with one scarlet frown.
Chattering sadly to each other, the mourners passed through the
lych-gate and traversed the chestnut avenues that led down to the
village. The young wood-cutter stayed a little longer, poised
above the silence and swaying rhythmically. At last the bough
fell beneath his saw. With a grunt, he descended, his thoughts
dwelling no longer on death, but on love, for he was mating. He
stopped as he passed the new grave; a sheaf of tawny
chrysanthemums had caught his eye. "They didn't ought to have
coloured flowers at buryings," he reflected. Trudging on a few
steps, he stopped again, looked furtively at the dusk, turned
back, wrenched a chrysanthemum from the sheaf, and hid it in his
pocket.
After him came silence absolute. The cottage that abutted on the
churchyard was empty, and no other house stood near. Hour after
hour the scene of the interment remained without an eye to
witness it. Clouds drifted over it from the west; or the church
may have been a ship, high-prowed, steering with all its
company towards infinity. Towards morning the air grew colder,
the sky clearer, the surface of the earth hard and sparkling
above the prostrate dead. The wood-cutter, returning after a
night of joy, reflected: "They lilies, they chrysants; it's a
pity I didn't take them all."
Up at Howards End they were attempting breakfast. Charles and
Evie sat in the dining-room, with Mrs. Charles. Their father, who
could not bear to see a face, breakfasted upstairs. He suffered
acutely. Pain came over him in spasms, as if it was physical, and
even while he was about to eat, his eyes would fill with tears,
and he would lay down the morsel untasted.
He remembered his wife's even goodness during thirty years. Not
anything in detail--not courtship or early raptures--but just the
unvarying virtue, that seemed to him a woman's noblest quality.
So many women are capricious, breaking into odd flaws of passion
or frivolity. Not so his wife. Year after year, summer and
winter, as bride and mother, she had been the same, he had always
trusted her. Her tenderness! Her innocence! The wonderful
innocence that was hers by the gift of God. Ruth knew no more of
worldly wickedness and wisdom than did the flowers in her garden,
or the grass in her field. Her idea of business--" Henry, why do
people who have enough money try to get more money?" Her idea of
politics--" I am sure that if the mothers of various nations
could meet, there would be no more wars," Her idea of religion--
ah, this had been a cloud, but a cloud that passed. She came of
Quaker stock, and he and his family, formerly Dissenters, were
now members of the Church of England. The rector's sermons had at
first repelled her, and she had expressed a desire for "a more
inward light," adding, "not so much for myself as for baby"
(Charles). Inward light must have been granted, for he heard no
complaints in later years. They brought up their three children
without dispute. They had never disputed.
She lay under the earth now. She had gone, and as if to make her
going the more bitter, had gone with a touch of mystery that was
all unlike her. "Why didn't you tell me you knew of it?" he had
moaned, and her faint voice had answered: "I didn't want to,
Henry--I might have been wrong--and every one hates illnesses."
He had been told of the horror by a strange doctor, whom she had
consulted during his absence from town. Was this altogether just?
Without fully explaining, she had died. It was a fault on her
part, and--tears rushed into his eyes--what a little fault! It
was the only time she had deceived him in those thirty years.
He rose to his feet and looked out of the window, for Evie had
come in with the letters, and he could meet no one's eye. Ah
yes--she had been a good woman--she had been steady. He chose the
word deliberately. To him steadiness included all praise. He
himself, gazing at the wintry garden, is in appearance a steady
man. His face was not as square as his son's, and, indeed, the
chin, though firm enough in outline, retreated a little, and the
lips, ambiguous, were curtained by a moustache. But there was no
external hint of weakness. The eyes, if capable of kindness and
good-fellowship, if ruddy for the moment with tears, were the
eyes of one who could not be driven. The forehead, too, was like
Charles's. High and straight, brown and polished, merging
abruptly into temples and skull, it had the effect of a bastion
that protected his head from the world. At times it had the
effect of a blank wall. He had dwelt behind it, intact and happy,
for fifty years. "The post's come, father," said Evie awkwardly.
"Thanks. Put it down."
"Has the breakfast been all right?"
"Yes, thanks."
The girl glanced at him and at it with constraint. She did not
know what to do.
"Charles says do you want the Times?"
"No, I'll read it later."
"Ring if you want anything, father, won't you?"
"I've all I want."
Having sorted the letters from the circulars, she went back to
the dining-room.
"Father's eaten nothing," she announced, sitting down with
wrinkled brows behind the tea-urn.
Charles did not answer, but after a moment he ran quickly
upstairs, opened the door, and said "Look here father, you must
eat, you know; and having paused for a reply that did not come,
stole down again. "He's going to read his letters first, I
think," he said evasively; "I dare say he will go on with his
breakfast afterwards." Then he took up the Times, and for some
time there was no sound except the clink of cup against saucer
and of knife on plate.
Poor Mrs. Charles sat between her silent companions terrified at
the course of events, and a little bored. She was a rubbishy
little creature, and she knew it. A telegram had dragged her from
Naples to the death-bed of a woman whom she had scarcely known. A
word from her husband had plunged her into mourning. She desired
to mourn inwardly as well, but she wished that Mrs. Wilcox, since
fated to die, could have died before the marriage, for then less
would have been expected of her. Crumbling her toast, and too
nervous to ask for the butter, she remained almost motionless,
thankful only for this, that her father-in-law was having his
breakfast upstairs.
At last Charles spoke. "They had no business to be pollarding
those elms yesterday," he said to his sister.
"No, indeed."
"I must make a note of that," he continued. "I am surprised that
the rector allowed it."
"Perhaps it may not be the rector's affair."
"Whose else could it be?"
"The lord of the manor."
"Impossible."
"Butter, Dolly?"
"Thank you, Evie dear. Charles--"
"Yes, dear?"
"I didn't know one could pollard elms. I thought one only
pollarded willows."
"Oh no, one can pollard elms."
"Then why oughtn't the elms in the churchyard to be pollarded?"
Charles frowned a little, and turned again to his sister.
"Another point. I must speak to Chalkeley."
"Yes, rather; you must complain to Chalkeley."
"It's no good his saying he is not responsible for those men. He
is responsible."
"Yes, rather."
Brother and sister were not callous. They spoke thus, partly
because they desired to keep Chalkeley up to the mark--a healthy
desire in its way--partly because they avoided the personal note
in life. All Wilcoxes did. It did not seem to them of supreme
importance. Or it may be as Helen supposed: they realised its
importance, but were afraid of it. Panic and emptiness, could one
glance behind. They were not callous, and they left the
breakfast-table with aching hearts. Their mother never had come
in to breakfast. It was in the other rooms, and especially in the
garden, that they felt her loss most. As Charles went out to the
garage, he was reminded at every step of the woman who had loved
him and whom he could never replace. What battles he had fought
against her gentle conservatism! How she had disliked
improvements, yet how loyally she had accepted them when made! He
and his father--what trouble they had had to get this very
garage! With what difficulty had they persuaded her to yield them
the paddock for it--the paddock that she loved more dearly than
the garden itself! The vine--she had got her way about the vine.
It still encumbered the south wall with its unproductive
branches. And so with Evie, as she stood talking to the cook.
Though she could take up her mother's work inside the house, just
as the man could take it up without, she felt that something
unique had fallen out of her life. Their grief, though less
poignant than their father's, grew from deeper roots, for a wife
may be replaced; a mother never. Charles would go back to the
office. There was little at Howards End. The contents of his
mother's will had long been known to them. There were no
legacies, no annuities, none of the posthumous bustle with which
some of the dead prolong their activities. Trusting her husband,
she had left him everything without reserve. She was quite a poor
woman--the house had been all her dowry, and the house would come
to Charles in time. Her watercolours Mr. Wilcox intended to
reserve for Paul, while Evie would take the jewellery and lace.
How easily she slipped out of life! Charles thought the habit
laudable, though he did not intend to adopt it himself, whereas
Margaret would have seenin it an almost culpable indifference to
earthly fame. Cynicism--not the superficial cynicism that snarls
and sneers, but the cynicism that can go with courtesy and
tenderness--that was the note of Mrs. Wilcox's will. She wanted
not to vex people. That accomplished, the earth might freeze over
her for ever.
No, there was nothing for Charles to wait for. He could not go on
with his honeymoon, so he would go up to London and work--he felt
too miserable hanging about. He and Dolly would have the
furnished flat while his father rested quietly in the country
with Evie. He could also keep an eye on his own little house,
which was being painted and decorated for him in one of the
Surrey suburbs, and in which he hoped to install himself soon
after Christmas. Yes, he would go up after lunch in his new
motor, and the town servants, who had come down for the funeral,
would go up by train.
He found his father's chauffeur in the garage, said "Morning"
without looking at the man's face, and bending over the car,
continued: "Hullo! my new car's been driven!"
"Has it, sir?"
"Yes," said Charles, getting rather red; "and whoever's driven it
hasn't cleaned it properly, for there's mud on the axle. Take it
off."
The man went for the cloths without a word. He was a chauffeur as
ugly as sin--not that this did him disservice with Charles, who
thought charm in a man rather rot, and had soon got rid of the
little Italian beast with whom they had started.
"Charles--" His bride was tripping after him over the hoar-frost,
a dainty black column, her little face and elaborate mourning hat
forming the capital thereof.
"One minute, I'm busy. Well, Crane, who's been driving it, do you
suppose?"
"Don't know, I'm sure, sir. No one's driven it since I've been
back, but, of course, there's the fortnight I've been away with
the other car in Yorkshire."
The mud came off easily.
"Charles, your father's down. Something's happened. He wants you
in the house at once. Oh, Charles!"
"Wait, dear, wait a minute. Who had the key of the garage while
you were away, Crane?"
"The gardener, sir."
"Do you mean to tell me that old Penny can drive a motor?"
"No, sir; no one's had the motor out, sir."
"Then how do you account for the mud on the axle?"
"I can't, of course, say for the time I've been in Yorkshire. No
more mud now, sir."
Charles was vexed. The man was treating him as a fool, and if his
heart had not been so heavy he would have reported him to his
father. But it was not a morning for complaints. Ordering the
motor to be round after lunch, he joined his wife, who had all
the while been pouring out some incoherent story about a letter
and a Miss Schlegel.
"Now, Dolly, I can attend to you. Miss Schlegel? What does she
want?"
When people wrote a letter Charles always asked what they wanted.
Want was to him the only cause of action. And the question in
this case was correct, for his wife replied, "She wants Howards
End."
"Howards End? Now, Crane, just don't forget to put on the Stepney
wheel."
"No, sir."
"Now, mind you don't forget, for I-- Come, little woman." When
they were out of the chauffeur's sight he put his arm round her
waist and pressed her against him. All his affection and half his
attention--it was what he granted her throughout their happy
married life.
"But you haven't listened, Charles."
"What's wrong?"
"I keep on telling you--Howards End. Miss Schlegel's got it."
"Got what?" said Charles, unclasping her. "What the dickens are
you talking about?"
"Now, Charles, you promised not so say those naughty--"
"Look here, I'm in no mood for foolery. It's no morning for it
either."
"I tell you--I keep on telling you--Miss Schlegel--she's got
it--your mother's left it to her--and you've all got to move
out!"
"HOWARDS END?"
"HOWARDS END!" she screamed, mimicking him, and as she did so
Evie came dashing out of the shubbery.
"Dolly, go back at once! My father's much annoyed with you.
Charles"--she hit herself wildly--"come in at once to father.
He's had a letter that's too awful."
Charles began to run, but checked himself, and stepped heavily
across the gravel path. There the house was with the nine
windows, the unprolific vine. He exclaimed, "Schlegels again!"
and as if to complete chaos, Dolly said, "Oh no, the matron of
the nursing home has written instead of her."
"Come in, all three of you!" cried his father, no longer inert.
"Dolly, why have you disobeyed me?"
"Oh, Mr. Wilcox--"
"I told you not to go out to the garage. I've heard you all
shouting in the garden. I won't have it. Come in."
He stood in the porch, transformed, letters in his hand.
"Into the dining-room, every one of you. We can't discuss private
matters in the middle of all the servants. Here, Charles, here;
read these. See what you make."
Charles took two letters, and read them as he followed the
procession. The first was a covering note from the matron. Mrs.
Wilcox had desired her, when the funeral should be over, to
forward the enclosed. The enclosed--it was from his mother
herself. She had written: "To my husband: I should like Miss
Schlegel (Margaret) to have Howards End."
"I suppose we're going to have a talk about this?" he remarked,
ominously calm.
"Certainly. I was coming out to you when Dolly--"
"Well, let's sit down."
"Come, Evie, don't waste time, sit--down."
In silence they drew up to the breakfast-table. The events of
yesterday--indeed, of this morning suddenly receded into a past
so remote that they seemed scarcely to have lived in it. Heavy
breathings were heard. They were calming themselves. Charles, to
steady them further, read the enclosure out loud: "A note in my
mother's handwriting, in an envelope addressed to my father,
sealed. Inside: 'I should like Miss Schlegel (Margaret) to have
Howards End.' No date, no signature. Forwarded through the matron
of that nursing home. Now, the question is--"
Dolly interrupted him. "But I say that note isn't legal. Houses
ought to be done by a lawyer, Charles, surely."
Her husband worked his jaw severely. Little lumps appeared in
front of either ear--a symptom that she had not yet learnt to
respect, and she asked whether she might see the note. Charles
looked at his father for permission, who said abstractedly, "Give
it her." She seized it, and at once exclaimed: "Why, it's only in
pencil! I said so. Pencil never counts."
"We know that it is not legally binding, Dolly," said Mr. Wilcox,
speaking from out of his fortress. "We are aware of that.
Legally, I should be justified in tearing it up and throwing it
into the fire. Of course, my dear, we consider you as one of the
family, but it will be better if you do not interfere with what
you do not understand."
Charles, vexed both with his father and his wife, then repeated:
"The question is--" He had cleared a space of the breakfast-table
from plates and knives, so that he could draw patterns on the
tablecloth. "The question is whether Miss Schlegel, during the
fortnight we were all away, whether she unduly--" He stopped.
"I don't think that," said his father, whose nature was nobler
than his son's.
"Don't think what?"
"That she would have--that it is a case of undue influence. No,
to my mind the question is the--the invalid's condition at the
time she wrote."
"My dear father, consult an expert if you like, but I don't admit
it is my mother's writing."
"Why, you just said it was!" cried Dolly.
"Never mind if I did," he blazed out; "and hold your tongue."
The poor little wife coloured at this, and, drawing her
handkerchief from her pocket, shed a few tears. No one noticed
her. Evie was scowling like an angry boy. The two men were
gradually assuming the manner of the committee-room. They were
both at their best when serving on committees. They did not make
the mistake of handling human affairs in the bulk, but disposed
of them item by item, sharply. Caligraphy was the item before
them now, and on it they turned their well-trained brains.
Charles, after a little demur, accepted the writing as genuine,
and they passed on to the next point. It is the best--perhaps the
only--way of dodging emotion. They were the average human
article, and had they considered the note as a whole it would
have driven them miserable or mad. Considered item by item, the
emotional content was minimised, and all went forward smoothly.
The clock ticked, the coals blazed higher, and contended with the
white radiance that poured in through the windows. Unnoticed, the
sun occupied his sky, and the shadows of the tree stems,
extraordinarily solid, fell like trenches of purple across the
frosted lawn. It was a glorious winter morning. Evie's fox
terrier, who had passed for white, was only a dirty grey dog now,
so intense was the purity that surrounded him. He was
discredited, but the blackbirds that he was chasing glowed with
Arabian darkness, for all the conventional colouring of life had
been altered. Inside, the clock struck ten with a rich and
confident note. Other clocks confirmed it, and the discussion
moved towards its close.
To follow it is unnecessary. It is rather a moment when the
commentator should step forward. Ought the Wilcoxes to have
offered their home to Margaret? I think not. The appeal was too
flimsy. It was not legal; it had been written in illness, and
under the spell of a sudden friendship; it was contrary to the
dead woman's intentions in the past, contrary to her very nature,
so far as that nature was understood by them. To them Howards End
was a house: they could not know that to her it had been a
spirit, for which she sought a spiritual heir. And--pushing one
step farther in these mists--may they not have decided even
better than they supposed? Is it credible that the possessions of
the spirit can be bequeathed at all? Has the soul offspring? A
wych-elm tree, a vine, a wisp of hay with dew on it--can passion
for such things be transmitted where there is no bond of blood?
No; the Wilcoxes are not to be blamed. The problem is too
terrific, and they could not even perceive a problem. No; it is
natural and fitting that after due debate they should tear the
note up and throw it on to their dining-room fire. The practical
moralist may acquit them absolutely. He who strives to look
deeper may acquit them--almost. For one hard fact remains. They
did neglect a personal appeal. The woman who had died did say to
them, "Do this," and they answered, "We will not."
The incident made a most painful impression on them. Grief
mounted into the brain and worked there disquietingly. Yesterday
they had lamented: "She was a dear mother, a true wife; in our
absence she neglected her health and died." To-day they
thought: "She was not as true, as dear, as we supposed." The
desire for a more inward light had found expression at last, the
unseen had impacted on the seen, and all that they could say was
"Treachery." Mrs. Wilcox had been treacherous to the family, to
the laws of property, to her own written word. How did she expect
Howards End to be conveyed to Miss Schlegel? Was her husband,
to whom it legally belonged, to make it over to her as a free
gift? Was the said Miss Schlegel to have a life interest in it,
or to own it absolutely? Was there to be no compensation for the
garage and other improvements that they had made under the
assumption that all would be theirs some day? Treacherous!
treacherous and absurd! When we think the dead both treacherous
and absurd, we have gone far towards reconciling ourselves to
their departure. That note, scribbled in pencil, sent through the
matron, was unbusinesslike as well as cruel, and decreased at
once the value of the woman who had written it.
"Ah, well!" said Mr. Wilcox, rising from the table. "I shouldn't
have thought it possible."
"Mother couldn't have meant it," said Evie, still frowning.
"No, my girl, of course not."
"Mother believed so in ancestors too--it isn't like her to leave
anything to an outsider, who'd never appreciate."
"The whole thing is unlike her," he announced. "If Miss Schlegel
had been poor, if she had wanted a house, I could understand it a
little. But she has a house of her own. Why should she want
another? She wouldn't have any use for Howards End."
"That time may prove," murmured Charles.
"How?" asked his sister.
"Presumably she knows--mother will have told her. She got twice
or three times into the nursing home. Presumably she is awaiting
developments."
"What a horrid woman!" And Dolly, who had recovered, cried,
"Why, she may be coming down to turn us out now!"
Charles put her right. "I wish she would," he said ominously. "I
could then deal with her."
"So could I," echoed his father, who was feeling rather in the
cold. Charles had been kind in undertaking the funeral
arrangements and in telling him to eat his breakfast, but the boy
as he grew up was a little dictatorial, and assumed the post of
chairman too readily. "I could deal with her, if she comes, but
she won't come. You're all a bit hard on Miss Schlegel."
"That Paul business was pretty scandalous, though."
"I want no more of the Paul business, Charles, as I said at the
time, and besides, it is quite apart from this business. Margaret
Schlegel has been officious and tiresome during this terrible
week, and we have all suffered under her, but upon my soul she's
honest. She's NOT in collusion with the matron. I'm absolutely
certain of it. Nor was she with the doctor, I'm equally certain
of that. She did not hide anything from us, for up to that very
afternoon she was as ignorant as we are. She, like ourselves, was
a dupe--" He stopped for a moment. "You see, Charles, in her
terrible pain your mother put us all in false positions. Paul
would not have left England, you would not have gone to Italy,
nor Evie and I into Yorkshire, if only we had known. Well, Miss
Schlegel's position has been equally false. Take all in all, she
has not come out of it badly."
Evie said: "But those chrysanthemums--"
"Or coming down to the funeral at all--" echoed Dolly.
"Why shouldn't she come down? She had the right to, and she stood
far back among the Hilton women. The flowers--certainly we should
not have sent such flowers, but they may have seemed the right
thing to her, Evie, and for all you know they may be the custom
in Germany."
"Oh, I forget she isn't really English," cried Evie. "That would
explain a lot."
"She's a cosmopolitan," said Charles, looking at his watch. "I
admit I'm rather down on cosmopolitans. My fault, doubtless. I
cannot stand them, and a German cosmopolitan is the limit. I
think that's about all, isn't it? I want to run down and see
Chalkeley. A bicycle will do. And, by the way, I wish you'd speak
to Crane some time. I'm certain he's had my new car out."
"Has he done it any harm?"
"No."
"In that case I shall let it pass. It's not worth while having a
row."
Charles and his father sometimes disagreed. But they always
parted with an increased regard for one another, and each desired
no doughtier comrade when it was necessary to voyage for a little
past the emotions. So the sailors of Ulysses voyaged past the
Sirens, having first stopped one another's ears with wool.
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